Sports Illustrated's Demise: Major Blow to Sports Journalism
Transcript
00:00 Let's talk about the death of Sports Illustrated.
00:02 I have to say, when I was a kid, I'll be brief, I collected every single Sports Illustrated
00:10 my entire life.
00:12 And I had a collection that my father was not happy with all over the house.
00:16 I had 5 million SIs.
00:18 I thought it was the greatest sports magazine ever.
00:22 And I think it's an utter catastrophe that it is going out of business.
00:27 Hey, mine are still upstairs in the attic.
00:30 You would believe it.
00:31 You've been here, so you understand what a mess this place is.
00:33 But the bottom line is, this is the maybe 20th interview that I've done with all of
00:37 these sports business things.
00:39 And everybody wants to reminisce about how Sports Illustrated was an important legacy
00:44 in their lives.
00:45 And now it's business like anything else.
00:47 Meredith Company, $110 million.
00:49 They assigned the rights to publish.
00:52 The guys fail with their payments.
00:54 They fail with the termination number.
00:56 And now the guy that says he wants to save Sports Illustrated forever is the founder
01:02 of 5-Hour Energy.
01:03 That doesn't mean he's going to do it or not.
01:05 I don't know whether he understands and appreciates the legacy that you and I and a million old
01:10 geezers do.
01:11 We all remember not only the Sports Illustrated brand, the paper it's printed on, the swimsuit
01:17 issue.
01:18 Then when it went digital, we gave it a break because it'll be digital.
01:21 But now that's in jeopardy also.
01:23 Listen, I went to the fan man fight at Caesars with sitting next to Frank DeFord.
01:30 And I literally, when I was there, I thought I was sitting next to Jesus.
01:34 He had a fur coat on.
01:37 And I thought he was the greatest writer.
01:40 And there's a lot of others that I could go through the litany of great pros like writers
01:46 from Sports Illustrated, the greatest sports writers of our time.
01:50 I thought were at Sports Illustrated without a doubt.